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Help with my religion!

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MClark:
You may have already heard this, but here is the writingexcuses podcasts on Religion in World Building.

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2008/08/10/writing-excuses-episode-27-world-building-religion/

synobal:
Thanks MClark, I've listened to, the pod cast already and it helped some. Your questions helped more though.

Snowleopard:

--- Quote from: MClark on January 26, 2012, 01:38:33 AM ---Here are some thoughts, hidden by spoiler. Is this ok, or is sending a PM better?

(click to show/hide)
Sorry if I'm too blunt, but here are my comments.
My first thought was why would a deity need human knowledge or experience? They're gods. Wanting or needing human knowledge doesn't sound like Zeus or Odin or Q to me.  Then I turned it around and thought of the deity as more of an alien spirit trying to learn about humans. Then the idea became more interesting and believable to me.  Tieing the return of souls to a form of ancestor worship (dying might be called Rejoining the Family), may make it more believable also. This is a data point of one, of course, so take it or leave it. You could also include both ideas. Maybe the nobility think of it as more a partnership with this ancestral spirit, but the peasants worship the spirit more as a god?

Questions you may want to consider - (Don't necessarily tell me the answers). 1. Since the spirit wants more experience then I would think killing younger noblepersons is considered a foul crime - robbing the spirit of experience. Then of course killing children is worse and abortions are the worst of all. 
2. So would magic spells that extend life be considered a good thing - more knowledge or experience accumulated - or a bad thing  - the spirit doesn't grow by your experience the longer you stay alive. Or you could have different sects that each adhere to one of these beliefs.
3. Does the knowledge go back to the spirit anywhere the nobility dies or does the nobility have to die in a temple or the central family temple. the answer feeds back to question 2, also. And question 1, also.
4. What about the peasants? Usually, the male nobility are going to get jiggity with the peasant women, so does the spirit send bits of itself to the part noble-part peasant folk?
5. What about when noble families interbreed? A Bourbon marries a Hapsburg, which noble spirit settles into the progeny?  Where does it go when the person dies?
6. If its an alien spirit does it try to screw with the host, just to have new experiences? "So what happens if a Montague falls in love with a Capulet? Lets find out."

I would echo snowleopard, that it sounds like an odd form of ancestor worship but like nothing I've heard of, but then I don't know much about comparative religion.

Very creative.

--- End quote ---

That works just fine MClark.  It's not expounding on an idea as you're doing that's the trouble it's more people's own fiction that JB has to watch out for, as I understand it.  And yes, sometimes it can be a fine line.
This thread by Mickey Finn explains it.
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,15778.0.html

Paynesgrey:
Consider sniffing around both Ptolemaic and Shinto traditions, as your world's religion seems to combine some elements of both. 

Kali:
It's not an uncommon belief, actually, among pagans.  As Sagan put it (though he'd spin to hear it used for religious purposes), "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."  It doesn't have a name that I know of, though.  Sorry.

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